In September of 2021, after a few weeks of arguing with my book publisher that they should have submitted my book “Happiness is a Cool Reactor” to the Library of Congress (LOC), I decided to do it myself.  In my letter I apologized for not submitting my book to them within the required three months per federal law (17 USC section 407), but that I had not been aware of this book publishing expectation.  You would have thought the book publisher would do it, and most do I have learned, but not the one I worked with.  The only reason I found out about this was because I became curious when my local Congressman (Dr. John Joyce) kept donating books from the LOC to local libraries.  I wondered where in the heck was he getting all of these books, and if some day my book would be one of those in the group he would be donating.  To my surprise as I looked into this, I found my book never would be part of the LOC unless I took action myself since my publisher refused.

So in my letter, in addition to my apology, I gave them some reasons why I thought my book would be a good addition to the nation’s library, including that:

• It was non-fiction and based on facts.
• It provided a detailed historical first-person account of a major event that occurred in America’s past, i.e., the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant accident.
• It described the life of an average American who becomes a worker in the nuclear power field and over a 40 year period transitions from a time before personal computers existed to today’s high tech smart phone environment.
• It educated the reader on nuclear energy and why it should be an important part of how the U.S. should fight climate change while at the same time provide the energy needed to sustain the quality of life desired for the future of our country.
• And although biographical in approach, the book was written as an educational supplement for high school and college-level students and anyone else who may be interested in nuclear engineering fundamentals.

I also told them to not hesitate to write me if they had any questions.  So after over a year and a half of waiting to hear something, I decided to check the LOC website to see if my book had been processed and sure enough it was (see screen shot below).  In fact it stated that as of January of this year, it was still in the process phase.  Eventually it should end up in either the LOC’s Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Room or both (since by law I originally had to send them two hard copies of my book for them to even consider processing it). The effort to get my book into the LOC was just another burden that was added on to all the other burdens that I had to undergo in writing and getting my book published.  It took well over a year of researching, writing and re-writing before even a rough draft was completed.  Then the real work began in trying to get it ready to be published.  Then after it was published, and as I suspected, the sales of the book never came close to covering the costs associated with getting it published – and never will.  Unless you’re a well-known author like Stephen King or James Patterson, being an author is a difficult profession to choose for a career, or for that matter, for it to be pursued even as a hobby.   My only hope is that some people will get a chance to read my book, get something out of it, and will appreciate the effort that had been made to write it.